There is a story born every minute when it comes to Movember. If you're planning on writing or blogging about one of them, we've provided our list of 30 interesting Movember headlines below (or create your own):

Mo Culture

1) The Return of the Mo – the increasing popularity and rebound of the Mo in pop culture

2) Categories of MOness – as we all start growing differently shaped and sized Mos – the anatomy of the Mo must be considered – Lame Mo, Bushy Mo, redhead Mo and perhaps more nichely, the female MO – a noble study.

3) The Hierarchy of Mo – how to get deeper and more deeply involved in Movember – if you go to MoChampions Facebook page – I talk about the 8 levels of Mo-ness – it’s like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Self-actualization just gone Mo. The more you MO, the more you grow, the more you know, the more you row.

4) The Importance of MoSistas – they are the key to “word of MO” – get a MoSista on your side, and I will show you 8 MoBros willing to grow. For an excuse note, click here. For a well-deserved gift tolerating your ticklish lip sweater, click here.

5) Grassroots Charity at Its Best – not driven by celebrity or a rich steward, Movember is total grassroots- because people simply care and want to get involved to the point they are willing to change their appearance. What started as 30 people in 2003, reached 130,000 in 2007 and now will be over 400,000 in 2010 (our number sits at 381,000 as we write).

6) Engaged Mo Employees, Happy Companies – look at the top 50 respected companies in Canada – a lot of them are Mo growing – coincidence, I think not. Forget Stephen Covey in the workplace, just get your stafff to grow Mos.

8) The under representation of men’s health and how it needs to get on the front page – remember 1 in 6 men will get prostate cancer and 1 in 2 will get cancer, get the facts.

9) Men are lazy in treating themselves, we need to get them diagnosing early with prostate cancer- 90% of prostate cancer is treatable if detected early enough, let’s start some conversations before it’s too late. Importantly, among Movember participants, 62% of them talked about men's health with friends, family and work colleagues.

11) Prostate cancer by the numbers – refer here for all the facts and stats http://ca.mediaroom.movember.com/ the big ones - 25,000 men will be diagnosed in Canada this year for prostate cancer and 4,400 will die. 1 in 2 men will be diagnosed with any form of cancer, still regrettably high but only 1 in 3 for women.

Canada

12) The popularity of Moing in Canada – what is it about Canadians and their love of the Mo?

With Canada just about to crest above 100,000 MoBros and MoSistsas, you are 16.6x more likely to grand support a MO in Canada vs. the US. Let's get some cross border Moing going.

15) Who Grows a Mo ? – at least in Canada, there seems to be no boundary, NDP, Liberal and Conservative, corporate suit and artistic t-shirt, city and rural, morning DJs and afternoon drive guys. The United Nations of MO - we'll solve prostate cancer now, perhaps global peace and the world economy in the future.

20) The 10 Styles of Mo – what’s the stylistic breakdown everybody is growing? Trucker Mo, Boxcar, Undercover Brother or 7 other styles – what’s the collective Mo flava? in early returns, based on tweets - 47% of Mos are destined to be Trucker Mos - for the full option of 10 sanctioned styles, click here

21) The Shave Off – where to go to shave off your Mos locally come December 1 -our guide of the Top 50 places to Shave Off Your Mo to follow.

23) The Reverse Mo – some Canadians have gone the other way and have had to shave off their moustache and beards – how does the reverse Mo feel? Check out the new look of our Vancouver MoBro Gus Fosarolli (@gusf )

24) The Flash Stache – how does Halifax get 700-1000 people together in Halifax common to make a human Mo, stay tuned!

30) The Power of a Small Group – how Movember started as a small group of 30 Melbournites and has continued to be all about small tribes of people rallying other people – remember Margaret Mead’s powerful quote “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever does”

October 28, 2010

That's our motto for this year's runup to the highly buzzable and causeworthy Movember 2010 campaign. We've had the privilege of pulling together a rag tag crew of passionate Movember digital team captains and assistant captains from across Canada.

Their mission is to spread the good word about Movember (it would appear their efforts are already working as we are well ahead of our fundraising goals and Movember was trending for a number of hours yesterday) and involve themselves in a little Mo-opetition, fundraising through their various local, digital and social media outlets. They are the front row of a much larger crew of 2,000 digital influencers we are engaging across Canada.

So if you are looking for a team of digital peeps? and want to join our cause - here's where you can find us:

A good chunk of what has obsessed our office over the last few weeks is the launch of Movember, christened last week by a moustache-inspired art gallery Movember launch event in Toronto. This is my third year as a committed, albeit scant blonde, MoBro (@movembersean) .

Part of the success of the Movember movement to change the face of men's health, has been in extending out well beyond the traditional circles of fundraising, in order to deliver attention, buzz and engagement.

It's open armed approach is embedded in its history - from 30 Australians having a dream (and perhaps one too many lagers), Movember has grown to a cause supported by 620,000 Mo Bros and Mo Sistas worldwide raising millions of dollars for the treatment and detection of prostate cancer worldwide. The success of Movember has not been driven by celebrity, a wealthy steward or a crisis moment; it's more been driven by word of mouth and getting people to care about and change their appearance for a cause, where they live, work and play.

2) Movember Registration Area - where all the fundraising begins - sign up as team captains, join a network challenge and integrate all your fundraising onto Twitter and other social arenas.

3) The Movember 5-Plex - five things you can do while on Movember.com - update on news, see how you rank across other fundraisers, get some merchandise, build out your social pages and visit a swanky and flash-based The Lodge - and amidst the stag heads and other clasically male trinkets, check out the Style Guide, some tips and facts and 5 basic Movember rules.

4) The MOSCARS - a MO-sourcing, video based competition built by Meme Labs to aggregate all the videos that flag why Mo Bros and Mo Sissas are participating in 2010, the three top videos get suited up with Movember swag.

On the Social Extensions front:

5-8) MO Social - Movember has keenly taken advantage of digital word of mouth by inhabiting the top 4 networks: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr with many country and city specific handles - next year perhaps we'll add LinkedIn - but perhaps that would make us less cool?

27) Movember Prostate Cancer and Livestrong affiliations - establishing strong ties to the representative bodies for Movember in Canada and the U.S. leaves a trail of a lot of positive goodwill and also the raison d'etre for undertaking the campaign.

On the events/experience front:

28) Movember Local Committees- it's amazing what happens when local people embedded in their communities rally their own business, organizational, trade and neighborhood groups around the Mo flag.

I've avoided including Android (I have been told Samsung's Galaxy S is the best here) or Windows 7 (which my Microsoft moles have become genuinely excited about the future reinvention of Windows Mobile) in this discussion as I have never owned either, but I recognize there is no shortage of enthusiastic friends wanting to demo these for me. This is more a duel between the current flagship titans of the smartphone business - the iPhone4 that just launched in Canada July 30th and the Blackberry Torch just launched yesterday August 3rd.

Here is my point by point breakdown:

The Wrapper (out of 10 pts) - as mentioned in my interview above, I likely was asked a handful of times in the 6 year history of owning my Blackberries to gawk at its features and hold it, but in just 4 days, I have been asked 15 times with my iPhone - the iPhone4 is plain cooler - it is brighter, thinner, easy to hold, shaped sleekly - it has a 3.5" screen vs. Blackberry's new Torch at 3.2" and its thickness is 9.3mm vs. the new Torch at above 14mm - much more pocket friendly - what I will give Blackberry is its ability to take a licking, as much as iPhone4 has encased itself in airplane glass, Blackberry is a UFC meets mobile warrior - overall though the verdict is iPhone4 10 - Blackberry Torch 7

Visuals (10 pts) - when compared to an iPhone3 -it feels like two layers of clouds have been lifted, iPhone's 640 x 960 pixel resolution display is industry leading, they have crossed over 300 pixels per inch which makes all images appear continuous to the human eye, its IPS technology is the same stuff they put in iPad and allows for a wider angle of screen resolution so even if you peer from the side, you still get a pristine image - the Torch has a 360x480 screen resolution - ouch, not even up to premium standard -iPhone 10 - Blackberry Torch 5

The Keyboard (10 pts) - here's where the iPhone4 comes back to the field - Blackberry slider pull out keyboard is plain easier to type and now they have added touch screen capabilities - Apple's touch keyboard is surprisingly intuitive and my learning curve was not horrible but for a guy like me who played too much rugby as a kid and have bricklayer fingers because of it - the QWERTY two-thumbs keyboard wins hands down - still Blackberry Torch 9 - Apple iPhone4 - 6

Applications (10 pts) - Apple has 225,000 applications vs. Blackberry's 5,000 applications - I'm sure you can cover off the main needs in your life fairly evenly (maps, compass, news sites) - but given my own 60 app downloads already, I can testify that I know Blackberry users are missing out on the Long Tail of downloads that really get at their niche interests and enhance their enjoyment and use of their device, and heck, even nascent Android has over 38,000 applications - Apple iPhone4 - 10, Blackberry Torch - 4

User Experience (10 pts) - I love being in one Apple environment and seamlessly being able to move around to another, I feel about 30% faster with an iPhone now - Blackberry's user experience is likely improved with touch screen capabilities but the multitasking abilities that allow iPhone4 to do stuff in the background while you're working on stuff in the foreground without apparently sucking battery power is ...ahem...way cool - iPhone4 - 9 Blackberry Torch 7

Socialness (10 pts) - as much as we still rely on email and texting - we are living in a social network universe of Twitter, YouTube and Facebook (double the time of any other online activity is now spent here) ...beyond app availability, it appears that the iPhone4 is always just one touch away from posting on social sites - I took a video this morning and posted to YouTube almost seamlessly - now I also hear one of the advances with Blackberry Torch is it's socialness on top of its historical strengths in email and messenger - willing to consider this a saw off -Blackberry best on old world social (text/email) and Apple superior on new world social (social/video/GPS local) iPhone4 - 8, Blackberry Torch - 8

Multimedia (10 pts) - both have 5 megapixel cameras with flashes and autofocus, where it all changes in favour of iPhone4 is improved microphones and speakers (the iPhone4 is roughly 40% louder than the iPhone3), HD video (vs. Torch's standard video), two way camera (great for Twitterian "look at me" self portraits) and Face Time videocalling (you may have seen the ads -a truly disruptive innovation) iPhone4 -9 Blackberry Touch - 6

Calling (10 pts) - haven't had a dropped call yet on the iPhone4 but it has had well documented antenna issues, since I'm guessing the Torch's visual interface allows for touch dialing - I'll consider contact lists and the prospect and experience of phoning dead even (Torch's universal search might even make this better), and since they are all carried by the same carriers, there are no network differences - until Facetime calling takes off (available only in wi-fi mode and with other iPhone4 users) for the time being, it's a dead heat - iPhone4 - 8 and Blackberry Torch 8

Battery Life (5 pts) - iPhone4 - 7 hours talk time, 40 hours of audio playback and 10 hours of video playback, Blackberry Torch - 5.8 hours talk time, 30 hours of audio playback, 6 hours of video playback - comparable and I will say based on the superior multimedia uses of the iPhone - it may run out earlier not based on inferior battery but based on proportionately more time spent on apps that battery hog - Apple iPhone4 -4 , Blackberry Torch - 3.

Emotional Allure (5 pts) - even my avowed Blackberry loyalist in the above video April Dunford claims the emotional tug of the Apple can be too appealing to resist - part of this social "tidal pull" toward the iPhone has been created organically by its users, part of it by its mastery of the user experience from consideration to retail to packaging to the tech and software and part of it, by the launch of stuff and features, months sometimes years, before other competitors, it's a tough one for BB to compete against (I hear a Blackberry iPad will launch in November, once again 8 months after Apple)- I think one competitive wedge could be Blackberry opening up to social networks in a big way as Apple has resisted, but BB has invested its external operations in customer service and less about building online community, too bad - Apple iPhone4 5, Blackberry Torch 3

The Extras (10 pts) - let's see - iPhone4 has a pretty cool 3 axis gyroscope, a built in compass, 16 or 32GB of built in memory vs. Blackberry's 4GB install (that can open up to 32GB) and some other barely used but good to brag about bling....most of Blackberry Torch's features from first appearances seem like a catch up to Apple iPhone's world - beyond being cheaper and having the slider already mentioned, there doesn't seem to be remarkably different stuff on the Blackberry - iPhone4 - 8, Blackberry Torch 5

July 21, 2010

From the ashes of the meltdown of the 2008 and 2009 world economy comes a number of group and local deal services targeting local-based retailers and the people that shop there. It is truly the marriage between three rising trends - e-commerce, localization and social networking - wrapped up in a discount envelope. I've had no fewer than ten people ask me about the comparative strength of these services - apparently many of their sales teams are pitching superiority in their proposals.

I'm of two minds here. On one side, this is a heck of a lot better than targeting discounts and coupons through newspaper from an effectiveness, from a tracking and from a pay-for-performance standpoint. As a client interested in ROI or a retailer counting their pennies, this type of service gets a lot closer to knowing which part of your marketing spend is effective.

On the other side, I see a nation of retailers, from high end boutiques to low end discounters, training their clientele to shop based on price and ceding over their customer lists to others in the process. Is this just a better more contemporary, socialized version of the coupon that allows more real estate to promote your offering or is this the Walmartization of local merchant economy?

That economic and moral question aside, we have reviewed and rated 30 of the top deal services based on the following criteria:

- User Experience (20 pts)

- Quality of Deal (20 pts)

- Differentiation of Offering (15 pts)

- Design (15 pts)

- Socialness (10 pts)

- Breadth of Deals (10 pts)

- Number of Cities/Places (10 pts)

We'll release our ratings next week but hopefully give their founders and executive staff a chance to provide additional thoughts and highlight their strengths on their group wares. I'll individually evaluate each site in follow up posts.

In the interim, here is our preliminary rating of their Twitter presence. Twitter IQ scores were given based on number of followers, quality and frequency of posts, depth of engagement and smart Twitter behaviour (response/promote ratios, central and city-based pages):

Congrats Gilt Groupe, Living Social, Team Buy and ScoutMob for passing our Twitter test with flying colours. Unfortunately Twitter socialness likely only counts for 3% of our total evaluation. For those who work at these companies, we'd love to evaluate your strengths firsthand, so drop us a line or leave a comment below.

We've also left 8 spots open for additions, so please provide us your best other group buying networks/websites for our total evaluation. Happy deals.

April 26, 2010

We're excited about our 23rd and most collaborative LOKBP event yet, happening in Vancouver this week. One of the big reasons why is the theme "Socializing for Social Good". We are teaming up with fresh upstart and refreshingly candid "F+ck Cancer" to collaborate on their future business needs.

I had a chance to chat with Yael Cohen, change agent and founder of F+ck Cancer last week and get the lowdown about what it's all about:

Buzz Canuck: I love coming across new causes or movements that feel fresh or different, when we were introduced to F*ck cancer weeks ago, it got me excited, what's it all about?

Yael Cohen: It started pretty simply. My mom got cancer and as she was going through treatment, we made up these shirts "F*ck Cancer". The reactions were unbelievable. She would walk around the block, and people were openly hugging and expressing support. What has developed here was very organic stretching from one personal experience to a global movement that gives patients the power to standup against cancer.

BC: Now that it is up and running, what's the bigger cause d'etre here?

YC: As much as we need funding for treatment, we really need to switch the focus of where the majority of our charity funds go. Simple early detection and prevention needs to get on everybody's agenda. Sure you're going to live your life but it is becoming so much more easy to profile the risks and tackle cancer at a more treatable stage. We also want it easier for patients who have cancer or doctors that cover it to create a much better dialogue to know how best to tackle cancer together - too many bad experiences have happened to not tackle the questions a patient should ask when they get diagnosed. The reality is most of the money you raise currently goes to finding a cure, we would like to rebalance that.

BC: You've taken a cheeky page of French Connections (FCUK) and Ontario energy's (Flick off) book , by using the brazen F-word - why?

YC: First, I think we have to realize that unlike how more than a few charities and care staff work "it's the pat you on the head" approach and provide some empathy. The reality is that it sucks getting cancer. It can be violent in how it attacks your body and we're saying, you know what "it's alright to be angry", "it's alright to feel singled out". But we want to empower people to take back control of their cancer. The F-word is a very powerful word. People are ready for this now. I work in investor relations for a mining company and although I might not wear the T-shirt front and centre to work everyday, it's part of our conversation, let's be honest.

BC: Is there a danger people will feel that this is too negative or too politically incorrect?

YC: We are very careful to ensure people realize that F*ck cancer is all about taking smart measures to diagnose, prevent and fight cancer. We have developed cue cards and body maps that help people understand their risks. We are not all style, there is a lot of substance behind our message that is not getting through. If using a collections of words that gets more people to share their stories, we're alright with that.

BC: So what's next?

YC: I never knew what this would become. I work in investor relations and have a degree in political science at UBC and have no background in not-for-profit. Heck, we're using social media to spread the word and I just learned twitter 3 weeks ago. But we've now produced 2,000 shirts and are encouraging people to send their pictures in wearing the T-shirt and telling their really powerful experiences. We also want to be an advocacy movement and are working at extending geographically to LA, NYC, UK, France, Spain, Australia and Germany. We're working with Cancer Schmancer to extend our message out. What we'd like everybody to do is just like our website tells "say it, share it ,wear it and do it".

YC: Hopefully we'll get some new outlooks, ways to get the message further out, a tagline and a call to action. We'd really also like to try to find out how we get university age people extending this important message to their parents and older audiences that are at elevated cancer risks. It should be fun, it will be interesting to see how people see what we're doing.

April 22, 2010

I know, I know - as a traditional age marketer, the concept of "listening" may sound all motherhood-y and granola, but you must know by now it's so critically important to an engaged business.

In fact, the toplines of our Buzz Report suggest that of 16 different elements "Listening - not staying tuned and responding to what members/customers want quickly" was considered the biggest sin of not building an engaged, collaborative business.

I didn't expect this - I would have thought the measurement advocates, technology gurus or strategy folks would have dominated our poll results. But more than 53% of our panel ranked the seemingly simple act of "listening" the top ingredient for doing well in "social business".

In interviewing a cadre of experts for our book Wikibrands, we've begun to realize the "art and science" of listening perhaps isn't that simple and has many dimensions:

Customer Monitoring - Knowing what people are saying about you - this is perhaps the most obvious one, it involves the least investment of time for the most benefit. Whether it is for marketing, customer service or research motivations, 68% of companies have a system in place to perform this listening function. Whether it's done by UHU glue and masking tape (Technorati, Twitter search, Hootsuite, manual audit and search) or one of the reputable social media monitoring vendors (Radian6, Visible), the call of the "connected age" is just do it.

Customer Culture - Knowing what your customer and influencers are doing - businesses need to meet their customers on their own soil - we no longer can broadcast our messages through the key traditional 6 channels (TV, radio, outdoor, prints, newspaper, direct) - we have to be "every place" and also be well behaved when we get there by understanding the rules and motivations of what people want from us there. It is a mandate that engaged business should be devoting resources for Brailling the culture of their marketplace (see Community Manager role)

Customer Centricity - Customers recognize you are actively listening - it's not enough just to know the social environment of your product and customer universe, you need to participate...and show your customers that you are listening. Consider the majority of Whole Food's social media activity is responding to customers nationally, on an interest and local-specific basis. The fact thatthey are the 52nd most popular Twitter page (ahead of Paris Hilton at #55) and you'll realize that is no coincidence. You need to provide the real genuine face and ear of your company to the community at large to fully recognize the benefits of listening.

Customer-Driven - Customers recognize you are changing based on feedback -so you're happy that you are listening and participating, your customers are happy that they feel listened to, what more could there be? Showing them you've changed, that's what. Any community, no matter how solidly entrenched, will get bored over time, if they don't feel their contributions to your business are causing things to change. You must change based on customer feedback, highlight the credit to your audience and communicate to others that they too can change the colossus that is your business.

April 11, 2010

A topic of much rancorous debate over the last few weeks in the office and on a few pitches has been the comparative appeal, need for and roles of these three very different e-beasts:

- the corporate site

- the online brand community and

- the social network extensions

(we could add blog if we wanted a fourth).

Some late adopting companies have questioned whether they need to even open themselves to the latter two more socially-oriented digital arenas. I liken them to the sentries trying to hold onto the last outskirts of the Roman Empire; I hope they have a better fate, but I fear not

Other aloof companies believe a bit of social media monitoring and a Facebook page is all you need to be social. I have a great deal on "pork belly" futures for you too if you subscribe to this school of thought.

Meanwhile, a number of high profile Cluetrain advocates have suggested that leading companies in the future may not even need to own their own hubs and that there business will be taken care of ably by their Facebook platforms, Twitter profiles, Google apps and iPhone apps. Calling all patrol cars, we're looking for the web insane - they've escaped their cells again.

All of these positions are horribly wrong and missing the key axiom on the role of web in building value for business - be everywhere, to all people with a balance of environments, content, benefit and control.

In an effort to presumedly control costs and complexity, companies are hunkering down and believing they need to choose one direction and stick to it. This is a cardinal sin - unfortunately also one being furthered by self-interested groups: boutique agencies who favour gorgeous looking standalone sites, ecommerce/technology companies pushing security tight enterprise infrastructures, Silicon Valley who are pushing white label, company-owned collaborative environments and ad platforms and social nets who are peddling third party platforms.

Why choose? After all, each serves a valuable purpose and if you look at the best engaged brands - they have a healthy participation and integration in all camps.

The chart below suggests why each has a role to play and how chopping a head off, eliminates access to a big part of the digital value chain.

So as much as you'd like to cut off the some of the limbs, arms and noggins from the three headed digital hydra - you'd be foolish to. You might be able to control your assets better but as a wise manager once told me "you can always manage failure, much tougher to manage success."

January 01, 2010

Hopefully once and for all, we can put the age-old 2.0 argument to rest - "do you build your own online community or connect on others?".

The essential need is to do both - if you hear advice to the contrary, the people you are talking to really don't know what they are talking about.

Think about a bike wheel - the built community is your hub - you control it and host the conversation inviting the world into your party, it powers what your business does...the affiliated communities (and there potentially many - see our social media octopus) are the spokes - extending your good stuff into the microcosms of the web and getting your content unchained, loose and fancy free.

Here's the key reason why you need the hub and spokes to your community bike - if you look at the 6 key requirements of building effective community (there are a few others - but these are the day to day operating essentials), a built community (i.e. Dell Ideastorm) vs. an affiliated community (i.e. a user forum or a Facebook page) perform much differently on these steps.

Outreach - for most prospective communities - the people you need to find and recruit are "out there" not "in here" - last time I checked finding 1.1 billion people in social networks, 350 million people on Facebook, 50 million LinkedIners and 20 million early adopting Twitterites then dropping a phone call to your very best friends - Advantage- Affiliated Communities

Seeding - identifying the right group of users to be your front row of testers, collaborators, users and ambassadors - takes a mix of scale - having a lot of people enter the candidate funnel and knowing what they are doing and saying in the world out there but on the other side, also understanding intimately the people that are already related to you and their intensity of commitment and interest - Advantage - A Tie

Engagement - competing with 150,000 Facebook pages and 100,000 iPhone apps are way too difficult, to create any type of meaningful engagement, the user experience in these arenas is to graze and sip not to settle into one space and go deep - on top of that, all of the meaningful metrics, insights and opportunity to build a relationship belong to the platform not the sponsoring party - you are at their whim - finally, any customization requirements are the mercy of what the social network platform or user forum allows you to do...it simply pays to build your own community to engage people on a deeper basis Advantage - Built Communities

Collaboration - oftentimes in a community you want to hive off a discussion, a project, an idea, a group and get a subset of engaged and informed people to rally around it away from your general mainstream group - once again, tough as nails to create that interaction on the popular social networks - you are just another subway stop on a user's very long train tracks of their web social and content life - creating this sense of commitment, affinity and collective interest happens in built communities enhanced by the ability to control and design your world your way consistent with community user's core needs Advantage - Built Communities

Affiliation - people join and buy into communities for three reasons - intrinsically - they buy into the values of what you're doing, extrinsically - they will appear better to their peers and explicitly - they get something for their time and effort - whereas built communities may reinforce a sense of intrinsic "we're all in this together" value better, affiliated communities allow for an expanded broadcast of your reputation driving extrinsic value - then it's a battle between the built communities ability to reward anybody at any time more easily vs. affiliated communities ease of effort and ability to recruit and be noticed be others doing good stuff Advantage - Tie

Rebroadcast - good content usually rises to level of its quality - and the good stuff usually goes "viral" in social networks and user forums not within the confines of the built community itself, check out the New York Times as well as most established media and grassroots blogs and the majority of their web traffic comes through links from affiliated networks (i.e. Twitter feeds) than specific destination visitors - their good content gets marginalized if not for the eyes of the affiliated community worlds this also supports search engine rankings Advantage - Affiliated communities

The short argument is that affiliated communities help build scale and the built communities help build engagement. Worth further exploration as a future blog post...but in the interim, when two online communities fork in the woods - take both paths.

December 10, 2009

As a follow up to my Un-Agency post back in June, I thought I would provide a scouting report on the 12 different types of firms trying to command the high ground on the social media/community space and what I perceive to be their strengths and weaknesses amongst the 18 competencies an engaged outsourced firm should have.

In part, I've done it to help clients understand the pros and cons to each agency choice they make here. Dial back 5 years, and as a client not living in social media or the grassroots on a daily basis - I would be confused and potentially charmed out of the best decision. Also in part, to make some sense of this "cattle drive" of new firms now entering and multiplying in the space given the media, technology and cultural shifts happening around them.

In full disclosure, two caveats:

- I run a specialist grassroots marketing services firm and likely have some biases that a focused firm with a strong specialization is a favoured method in most scenarios for social media success

- although I have worked with many partner firms and colleagues, I have by no means seen them all - what I am painting is the typical firm in each space, exceptions do exist but are rare

So, the 12 types of firms making a beeline for social media are:

- the Ad Agency

- the Brand/Design Agency

- the Strategic Consultancy

- the Innovation/Research Shop

- The CRM Firm

- the Social Media Hothouse

- the Grassroots Specialist

- the Digital Agency

- the PR Agency

- the Media Firm

- The Technology Vendor

- the Promotion/Sponsorship Firm

Let's tackle the first one - the Ad Agency - and why not, they still own the lion's share of dollars being spent on creative and communications. They are the award-winning All Stars of the communication space. See chart above - legend: the darker the shade - the better the competency and the lighter the shade - the poorer the competency.

As noted by the chart above, their obvious strengths are ideas, creative and content. They are the Mad Men of 2010. When I was head of marketing at Guinness, some of the work that was created by the ad people and their producers made most movies pale and drab by comparison. They had a really special talent to force you to pay attention and feel prouder, more intelligent for consuming the black stuff.

In a world of scoreboard watching and bean counting, it's refreshing they actually think about and produce stuff that is enormously entertaining and creative and thus, when done well, build one of the biggest currencies in this attention-starved marketplace - getting noticed.

What personal rankles me, as well as a number of my colleagues, is their lack of ability to play well in the schoolyard with other partner firms when we're not talking TV, radio, print or billboard.

Historically, they have always sat at the adult's strategy and planning table with the client, allowing other firms to fight over the execution and funding scraps that fell on the floor. Unfortunately, in the social media space, most have been reticent to acknowledge that they don't operate nearly as effectively in the grassroots engagement, dialogue or measurement facets of the business.

In fact, given monetization issues, staffing talent, siloed departments, pace of business and competing priorities, most would acknowledge behind closed doors that they are horrible at the grassroots engagement side of the business. At worst, some are downright hostile to opening up the brand to the customer for content, insight or advocacy purposes.

Despite all the hurdles inside their firms, they are reactionary to letting any other firm drive the social media car. We just had a pitch where one of the competing firms, having no competency or pedigree in the social media space, claimed rightful ownership to execution based on the "Integration of the idea". For our own selfish benefit as well as the client's, hopefully they don't get politicked into this way of thinking.

Integration is an over-used word by any large firms including ad agencies, particularly when there is an absence of any other substance there. Convergence didn't work in the media world, nor does the "everything under one roof" concept fly in agency land. The truth is most agencies have a competing fiefdoms that operate just as dysfunctionally, if not more then two different organizations would.

Usually there is a hierarchy of creative talent that based on history, the money trail and awards, looks at broadcast first before looking at how an idea travels in social media, word of mouth and community . One only needs to look at the turnover of online creative directors at large agencies to understand the web frustration from within.

From my point of view, here's the Ad Agency Scouting Report :

Strengths

1) Creative Ideas - ad agencies can legitimately lay claim to owning a brand idea that needs to then be parsed out in a number of different directions- within social media, they have a role in defining and providing colour to the brand idea and positioning so other people can then get excited and execute against it

2) Program Execution - what clients are craving, is somebody to take all the execution off their hands, a good ad agency director and team can be an extremely valued integrating force amongst a number of partner firms that deliver a "whole campaign/community" that is greater than the sum of its parts

3) Brand Positioning, Identity and Design - establishing a parent look and feel to any brand initiative is a key need to ensure initiatives don't look like orphan children from a different parent - being the brand cop and counsellor could be a valued ad agency role

4) Content Development - ad agencies forte is producing extremely good looking stuff on video and print, harnessing those elements and pieces to work on the web can be a lynchpin to social media success

5) Media Awareness - usually the ad agency is in the best position to integrate the efforts with their partner media houses and deliver scalable conversations through paid media - they can act as effective middleman and solution brokers with the media planning/buying firms

Blind Spots

1) Technical Infrastructure - one look at most flash-based agency websites will quickly tell you that integrating web platforms, database architecture, information security and privacy, and hosting is nearly the last thing on large agency agendas - they would be wise to seek third party managed host vendors with customer service capabilities

2) Research/Analytics - a weak link with ad agencies and one now under scrutiny given the need for ROI - ad agencies do not have the talent or the motivation to equip a truly helpful and now just-in-time system of monitoring and evaluating performance - they would be wise to work with a dedicated research house that understands the social media space or at minimum, work with an outsourced vendor like Radian6 or Visible than outfit it themselves

3) Influencer Outreach - I've asked agencies before who they're top 10, top 50, top 150 social media influencers are - most haven't an idea nor really care on a day-to-day basis - involving a firm like ourselves, or a seeding firm or media partner would alleviate most concerns here for agency and client

4) Social Media/Community Development - many agencies can pull off an iPhone app. or Facebook page - some are very clever and creative - unfortunately, this is not "living in the social media space" and create very little longevity of impact - the web is littered with these experiments that launched with great fanfare may have got initial traction and then traffic fell off a cliff when people realized their enthusiasm wasn't being rewarded, curated or responded to - community management is the key here, whether it be inside an agency, the client or an outsourced firm, somebody needs to keep the light on as the account executive tries to traffic the print ad that's two days late for Vogue

5) Customer Experience Focus - how people are using online properties on an ongoing basis?, how different marketing touchpoints are affecting the brand delivery of a positive customer experience? how customer insight may informs how a company runs their business better? Although agencies certainly have special access to a client and their executive, they rarely believe that the customer experience is their area of concern in these forums. Companies would be wise to hire online analytics specialists to dive deep on how their web stuff is being used and researchers/anthropologists to understand how this is being reflected and used in the real world.

What are your thoughts? Is this consistent with your experience, or do you have a different point of view. Let's discuss.

Next week - we'll cover off a much different scouting report - the PR Firms.